Access Ministries unfairly blamed over classes: bishop

Jewel Topsfield

THE group that teaches Christian education in government primary schools says it is up to the Education Department to address the concerns of parents whose children opt out of the classes.

Access Ministries chairman Stephen Hale said the group had been unfairly blamed for controversial aspects of the special religious instruction program, such as children who opt out being forced to sit in the corridor or at the back of the classroom.

Three parents are claiming in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal that the program segregates children on religious grounds and discriminates against children whose parents opt them out.

Bishop Hale said the Education Department set the guidelines, not Access Ministries, which provides 96 per cent of the religious education classes.

''We believe we've been unfairly caught up in an issue that at heart is a government responsibility,'' Bishop Hale said.

He said Access Ministries' responsibility was to teach the students who attended. Primary students must attend - if classes are offered - unless their parents choose to opt them out. Under department guidelines, ''secular instruction may not be timetabled while students from the class are attending special religious instruction''.

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One of the parents in the VCAT case, Sophie Aitken, said she could not believe her son was told he was not allowed to work on a school project while the rest of his class at Ivanhoe East Primary had their religious instruction.

Bishop Hale said if there was a problem it needed to be worked through with the department. ''It is open for the department to review … in most classes we are talking about a couple of kids,'' he said.

The Age understands the department is clarifying the guidelines to ensure in future students who opt out are given meaningful activities.

Critics have also raised concerns that some Access Ministries volunteers try to convert children to Christianity, which is forbidden under the program. But Bishop Hale said Access Ministries had received no complaints about proselytising, despite the barrage of media coverage since The Age first reported the discrimination complaint in March.

He said as far as he was aware the department had not received a significant number of complaints. ''You would have thought, given the attention this has received, that if what is being purported is happening, there would have been a flood of complaints to us or the department,'' Bishop Hale said.

He said Access Ministries explicitly told its 3500 volunteers not to proselytise.

A Victorian Education Department spokeswoman said there had been no complaints specifically about proselytising other than the VCAT complaint.

''The department has received more than 500 letters and emails on the topic of special religious instruction and chaplaincy from parents, carers, providers, educators and other interested parties,'' she said.

''This feedback represents a reasonably even spread of views, both for and against.''